Chocolate lovers, this one’s for you. These Mexican hot chocolate cookies (from the Trejo’s Tacos cookbook by Los Angeles restauranteur Danny Trejo) are intensely fudgy, but with a spicy twist.

“Here you have all the comforting, warming and spicy flavors of Mexican hot chocolate in chocolate chocolate-chip cookie form,” he writes. “It’s essentially a double chocolate chip cookie that we dust with cinnamon sugar spiked with cayenne. This makes it taste like a chocolate version of the old-fashioned Red Hots candy.”

Add it to your holiday cookie lineup ASAP, but make sure you give Great Aunt Marge a heads up about the cayenne kick.

_{Excerpted from Trejo’s Tacos Cookbook by Danny Trejo with Hugh Garvey, by permission of Clarkson Potter.}

RELATED: Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

Servings: 24 servings

Time:

Ingredients:

Cookie Dough

2¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened Dutch-processed Cocoa powder (such as Valrhona)

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1½ cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

½ cup semisweet chocolate chips

Cinnamon-Chile Sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions:

1. Make the Dough: Preheat the oven to 400°F. Set a fine-mesh sieve over a medium bowl. Add the flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt to the sieve, and sift into the bowl.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together on medium-low speed to combine. Increase the speed to high and beat, scraping down the side and bottom of the bowl as needed, until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well on medium-high after each addition. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add the flour mixture, a little at a time, until there aren’t any pockets of flour remaining. Reduce the speed to low, slowly add the chocolate chips, and mix until they are evenly dispersed, about 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.

3. Make the Cinnamon-Chile Sugar: In a shallow soup bowl or on a dinner plate, stir together the sugar, cinnamon, and cayenne until thoroughly mixed. Set aside.

4. Bake the Cookies: Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Form 2 tablespoons of the cookie dough into a ball (about the size of a Ping-Pong ball) and roll it in the cinnamon-chile sugar topping. Repeat with the remaining dough. Place the balls on the parchment paper–lined sheet pan, spacing them 3 inches apart (you will need to bake the cookies in batches).

5. Bake the cookies until they’ve flattened and are just set, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.

6. Remove the pan from the oven, transfer the cookies to a wire rack and cool them completely before serving. Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

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